Does it Have to be Real?

Seriously.  Sometimes, not always but sometimes, you can play with settings in Lightroom and Photoshop and end up with an end result that looks good.

This photo is a good example.  I took this this past winter on a dreary day.  The natural color... if you can call it that... had more grays and blacks.  And to be honest, I like this series in its natural colors as well.  But, when I imported them into Lightroom, just to amuse myself, I played with some settings... mostly the white balance... and came up with this.  I will admit that I was a bit surprised at my reaction.  I liked it.  It has a warmer, yet surreal, feel to it.  At the same time, it doesn't really have any pretense of being real or natural.

On of my earliest blog posts has a lake scene in Michigan where I shot the same scene during a foggy sunrise with several different white balances in the camera.  The natural color was yellow-ish.  Others were blue, purple, and so on.  They were all great, yet for different reasons.

Experimentation.  Give it a try!

Take a Peek

For those who are local and paying attention, it should be obvious from the overcast sky in this shot that it is not a recent shot.  Not with our current drought-like conditions.

But, in looking through past photographs this one jumped out at me.  The scene attracted me at the time, but the resulting images didn't "wow" me.  It's grown on me since, but most likely because I'm remembering what I saw at the time.  I think I need to go back and re-investigate this scene.

This is in the Amana Colonies, by the way.